Friday, September 8, 2017

For those who live to read...here are some awesome books provided by the incredible authors who wrote them. All in celebration of the new school year.

While a few of these books might be oldies, but goodies...others could be new and fresh off the presses.

Relax and find your new favorite author.

✯ ✯ ✯ ✯

SCI-FI

Science Fiction in traditional literary terms is a literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments,environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets,forms part of the plot or background.

Please enjoy these books that focus on sci-fi and all its sub-genres. The list is available in alphabetically order by title.

Don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win an Amazon Giftcard.

What do you do when the world as you know it ends? Run! A perfect life slides into despair when a trusting neighbor whispers a warning, and Mike and Laura Davis’s world crumbles. Dreams and goals come to an abrupt end, but a new existence waits in the future. Survival depends on the ingenuity of family and friends. First, they must hide in a safe place.

Are you sick of US politics? Afraid of what will become of America because your chosen candidate didn’t prevail? Do you believe the world is doomed now that King Donald has claimed the Oval Office throne?

Refresh your spirit and allay your fears by laughing along with what Mark Twain might have written about today’s political falderal.

Morgan le Fay, sixth-century Queen of Gore and the only major character not killed off by Mark Twain in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, vows revenge upon the Yankee Hank Morgan. She casts a spell to take her to 1879 Connecticut so she may waylay Sir Boss before he can travel back in time to destroy her world. But the spell misses by 300 miles and 200 years, landing her in the Washington, DC, of 2079, replete with flying limousines, hovering office buildings, virtual-reality television, and sundry other technological marvels.

Whatever is a time-displaced queen of magic and minions to do? Why, rebuild her kingdom, of course—two kingdoms, in fact: as Campaign Boss for the reelection of American President Malory Beckham Hinton, and as owner of the London Knights world-champion baseball franchise.

Written as though by the old master himself, King Arthur’s Sister in Washington’s Court by Mark Twain as channeled by Kim Iverson Headlee offers laughs, love, and a candid look at American society, popular culture, politics, baseball… and the human heart.

In a world ruled with military precision, a misspoken word has the power to generate enough rage to turn life upside down in the story of a post apocalyptic world on the brink. Steve Manos and his family live in Europe Town, a segregated area where people of European descent live in the Coalition; formerly the United States. The necessities of life are minimally met by the government and everyone works for the good of the leadership. Life for the people is almost intolerable, but that is when change happens.

Scarlett Lewis doesn’t realize the United States is succumbing to a horrific pandemic. Until Scarlett begins to notice the bizarre events occurring around her . . . Travel with Scarlett on her perilous journey as she discovers the dark fate of the human race. Along the way, she meets other survivors who may not have her best interests at heart. With hope as her last weapon of defense, Scarlett must learn how to survive in this creeper-infested world without sacrificing her own humanity.

Carla Simon is a best-selling novelist besieged by death threats and lawsuits because her stories keep turning out to be true. She is considered an extraordinary researcher, uncovering facts unknown by field experts.

In a single month, Alisha Kane has gone from a wealthy debutante to street girl to scavenger. While testing her new flying skills in the Cully Canyon, Alisha incurs a near-death crash landing. She’s “rescued” by a colonel of the SkyRyders and her life changes forever.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

For those who live to read...here are some awesome books provided by the incredible authors who wrote them. All in celebration of the new school year.

While a few of these books might be oldies, but goodies...others could be new and fresh off the presses.

Relax and find your new favorite author.

✯ ✯ ✯ ✯

ROMANCE

Romance in traditional literary terms is a narration of the extraordinary exploits of heroes, often in exotic or mysterious settings. The term romance has also been used for stories of mysterious adventures, not necessarily of heroes. These adventure romances usually are set in distant places.

Please enjoy these books that focus on romance and all their sub-genres. The list is available in alphabetically order by title.

Don't forget to enter the Rafflecopter for a chance to win an Amazon Giftcard.

Air Force Captain Stephanie Tyler's sole duty is to fly overseas to war torn areas of the world to retrieve and escort the bodies of fallen soldiers back home to the United States. It is a tough and emotional job but she is honored for the privilege. Her duty also helps her to escape her past and her failed marriage. But those flights have become increasingly more dangerous and she is forced to have a partner accompany her. Much to Stephanie's surprise and dismay, she is partnered up with her ex-husband, Captain Douglas 'DA' Aston. From the moment DA enters the scene, he irritates her. It could have something to do with the fact he slept with her best friend while she and DA were married. As they go on several missions together, Stephanie is forced to be courteous and professional with DA even though the very sight of him irritates her beyond comprehension. Then, Stephanie's cheating, husband stealing, ex-best friend is killed in Afghanistan and Stephanie and DA must escort her body home. While executing this difficult duty, a myriad of conflicting emotions makes Stephanie ponder how short life really is . . . and to question her own ability to forgive.

Top Journalist and corporate climber McKayla Buchanan is sent to a remote California mountain camp for inner-city, at-risk teens. Accustomed to political and high-society assignments, she is suddenly a fish out of water. At Camp In As Much, she meets eight hostile and distrustful teens, assorted volunteers, rescued horses—and Clay.

Clay Michaels is the man who founded Camp In As Much and made it the success it is now. His hope for the highly recommended journalist is to come and write a feature to send seeds out to form other camps like his nationwide one. He never considered the reporter would turn out to be a lovely woman, or for him to have such an attraction to her.

Between McKayla’s worldly experience and Clay’s strong faith, they form a partnership to help with the endless challenges of the kids.

While McKayla’s assignment is supposed to be temporary, it isn’t long before she and Clay are each wishing it could last longer. A serious situation will force McKayla to decide if she can give up her worldly ways and place her faith in the same higher source that Clay does.

Catherine “Cat” Warner has problems. The profits from her inns are down. The pressure from her parents is up. Her love life is non-existent. But Cat did manage to get the attention of tough, powerful, gorgeous hotel magnate Ty Orland. Unfortunately, his interest in her is for all the wrong reasons. Instead of wanting Cat, this debonair CEO only wants her land—a parcel he desperately needs for his next big development deal. Too bad, it’s not for sale. A people pleaser by nature, Cat knows to stand strong. If she caves in to the demands of this sexy, alluring man, it will be her own neck on the line.

Ty Orland has a lot of things going for him. Success. Power. Respect. Unfortunately, he’s also got an old chip on his shoulder and a new financial nightmare. His development deal is going down in flames—and fast. His only way out is if Cat sells him her strategically located parcel. But romancing the land from her is not easy when love gets in the way. The woman is as beautiful as she is beguiling. And Ty no longer knows which prize is more valuable.

The year is 1969. Though there is war and unrest in the world, on August 15th, on a farm in upstate New York, a little concert will go down in history as the most famous music festival of our time: Woodstock.

It also happens to be the day Bonnie McMillan and Peter Hampton meet and begin their free-spirited love-filled journey with each other. What happens at Woodstock stays at Woodstock, right? Nope!

Fast forward forty-seven years. Bonnie unexpectedly passes after a night of hot sex and is whisked up to Purgatory, ‘The Green Room’ as they call it. Bonnie’s best friend meets her at the pearly green gates and the fun begins, from body sculpting to channeling.

Follow Bonnie on her erotically incorrect quest to re-connect with the love of her life. Or at the very least, make sure the sex toys are hidden before the kids start sorting through her things!

Kate Willowbrook dreamed of a life filled with beauty –– a man who loves her, friends, and a home. At eighteen, Kate's dreams were replaced by nightmares when she witnessed a crime. Kate fled, never settling down and never trusting anyone until at the age of the thirty, she discovers the small town of Lakes Crossing and CEO, Noah Reed. When Noah’s wife was killed in an accident, his world exploded. Noah settled for an empty, loveless life until the day he met Kate. When he learns about Kate’s past and finds she is still in danger, Noah takes over, becoming over-protective—to the point Kate feels stifled and controlled. As Noah and Kate struggle to put the past behind them and find a balance that fulfills both their needs, they learn that there are no guarantees in life, but in Lakes Crossing they have been given a second chance at love.

"As the bassist for the band Caged, the last three years have been one, long non-stop party. Sure, I’ve had some regrets. Everyone does. But getting trapped in a relationship isn’t one of them. I know good and well what happens when the attraction fades. I’ve seen it first hand. Love is a zero sum game, so why play? As long as I’m upfront about my feelings, no one gets hurt. Besides, I’m never in one place long enough to worry about tomorrow.

That is, until the band decided to take an extended hiatus in our hometown. That’s when I met Melody Sullivan. She’s the full-package. Whip smart and beautiful, with enough determination to take on anything life has in store. And the best part? Melody shares my philosophy on the fleeting nature of attraction. She doesn’t buy into the whole “happily ever after” crap anymore than I do. We’re perfect for each other. For now. And now is all I want.

With the expectations off the table, I can let my guard down and enjoy her company until the spark dies. And we both know it will. In a week, or a month. But until then, we’ll just keep having fun. The good kind, with lots of sex and no strings attached. And when it’s time to move on, we will. No drawn out goodbyes and no remorse.

Interior designer Bertie Anderson has big dreams for her career, and they don't include being stuck in her hometown of Harmony, North Carolina. One last client, and Bertie is packing up her high heels and heading for her dream job in Atlanta. But her plans are derailed by the gorgeous new owner of that big old Victorian she's always wanted to renovate...

He's vowed to avoid...

For retired tennis pro Keith Morgan, Harmony is a far cry from fast-paced Miami-which is exactly the point. Keith is starting a new life for himself and his daughter Maddie, and he's left the bright lights and hot women far behind. Bertie's exactly the kind of curvaceous temptation he doesn't need, and Keith refuses to let their sizzling attraction distract him from his goals. Keith and Bertie both have to learn that there's more than one kind of escape, and it takes more than wallpaper to turn a house into a home.

Justine Montgomery, daughter of a divorced beauty queen and TV magnate, is a tabloid disaster after her infamous sex tape. She’s so desperate to help save her family’s home she turns to her deal-making dad. Can she prove to him she’s cut out for a career in television or will she lose it all?

Sawyer has his own past and a successful career is his only goal. Seeing Justine fail would mean the promotion of a lifetime, but things get complicated when he develops feelings for her. Suddenly, the lines between work, life, sex, and love are blurry.

They will have to overcome the bitterness of a rejected ex, the controlling actions of her father, and the half-truths they’re telling one another to forge a lasting partnership both on the job and off the clock.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Description and Getting to the Point

When someone complains about a book they just finished and you ask them why they didn’t like it, chances are good they’ll say one of two things: Either the author bored them with too many details, beating them over the head with page after page of unnecessary descriptions … or just the opposite: It lacked substance and the story wasn’t vivid enough to get into. So how much description is the right amount?

Back in the old days, it wasn’t unusual for authors to spend what is often now considered an absurd amount of time describing persons, places, and things. I remember reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and I absolutely loved it - but even I (who enjoyed every last word of long books like Gone With the Wind and Stephen King’s It) became a little weary after so many paragraphs describing the jewels, perfumes, and ancient tapestries so adored by Dorian. While The Picture of Dorian Gray remains one of my all-time favorite novels, I can understand how this degree of description might turn some readers right off.

Since the days of Dickens, Wilde, and Tolstoy, however, we seem to have gone the opposite direction. We’re told that the modern-day reader has no patience; that in these days of internet, microwaves, and text messages, readers simply don’t have time for anything but quick, hard-hitting stories that blow our minds in five minutes or less. As a result, many writers are scratching their heads, wondering why their novels aren’t bringing readers back for more, and readers are left feeling like they’ve paid for the all-you-can-eat buffet only to find the restaurant’s out of everything but the salad.

And this is why I don’t subscribe to the “readers-just-don’t-have-the-patience” philosophy. As an avid reader myself, I’ve put down many a book because it failed to pull me into its world. I, for one, am not interested in a seventy-five-page “novel” that casts no aesthetic spell over me. I want to be drawn in and made a part of the story, which leads me to believe that other readers want the same. And for that to happen, description does matter. While the right amount of it is largely a matter of the reader’s taste, there is a general rule when it comes to detail: A little goes a long way. But make no mistake, that little bit is very important.

When I’m riting, I try to use semi-broad strokes for my characters, generally describing only the most prominent or important qualities and allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. In my latest novel, Sleep, Savannah, Sleep, I described Savannah Sturgess (a young socialite who goes missing) as blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful. Beyond that, I left it alone. Beautiful to me may not be beautiful to you, and therefore, I don’t need to wax poetic about the slope of her upturned nose which has just the slightest sprinkling of gingerbread-colored freckles - three, to be exact - or the precise dimensions of her Greta Garbo cheekbones and Cindy Crawford jaw. Readers know what beauty means to them - let them have that.

When it comes to setting, though - which, in my opinion, is a character in itself - I try to be a little more specific because I want the reader to be a part of it. Still, a good rule of thumb is to describe only what your character would notice, with the goal of sprinkling it in naturally, avoiding large chunks of information that slow down the plot and turn things static. Most of the time, when a character walks into a room, the reader doesn’t need to know the kind of drapes that cover the windows or the patterns on the upholstery of the furniture. That said, depending on what the author is trying to achieve, the reader might be glad for such information. Part of what makes fiction so much fun is that there’s a time and place for everything. Well, everything except self-indulgence, that is.

Sometimes, an author sees a character or a part of the setting so clearly in their minds that it’s hard not to dig in a little deeper, but one thing you should try never to do is self-indulge. This means you avoid forcing readers to see things as you see them - and one of the ways I see authors doing this is by comparing their characters to well-known celebrities. It’s one thing to attribute a Don-Knotts-like face to an expendable gas station attendant for the sake of expedience, but it’s quite another to force your readers to view your main characters as men and women that you assume they’ll find attractive or honorable or otherwise charming.

There are two reasons I don’t like this. The first is that it’s lazy - and the second is that not everyone finds Brad Pitt (or whoever) to be attractive. If I want my character to be handsome, well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and if I say he looks like Brad Pitt circa 1999, then I’ve just eliminated the fantasy for anyone who happens to think Mr. Pitt looked better in 2006. Or that he was never sexy in the first place. The point is that if you get too forceful, you risk alienating the reader just as much as if you under-describe.

The best advice I ever got was this: The key to good description is to use it sparingly but efficiently. This means allowing the reader to use his or her imagination. It means trusting the reader’s intelligence enough to catch your drift without beating them over the head with it. It means using strong, concrete words to make your point - why say “car” when you can say “Honda Civic?”

I’d add to go easy on the adverbs, avoid weak qualifiers such as “kind of” and “somewhat,” and remember that there’s more to description than sight and sound. Incorporate all of the senses, do it succinctly, and then get to the point - which is the story.

Sleep, Savannah, Sleep

The Dead Don’t Always Rest in Peace

Jason Crandall, recently widowed, is left to raise his young daughter and rebellious teenage son on his own - and the old Victorian in Shadow Springs seems like the perfect place for them to start over. But the cracks in Jason’s new world begin to show when he meets Savannah Sturgess, a beautiful socialite who has half the men in town dancing on tangled strings.

When she goes missing, secrets begin to surface, and Jason becomes ensnared in a dangerous web that leads to murder. But who has the answers that will prove his innocence? The jealous husband who’s hell-bent on destroying him? The local sheriff with an incriminating secret? The blind old woman in the house next door who seems to watch him from the windows? Or perhaps the answers lie in the haunting visions and dreams that have recently begun to consume him.

Or maybe, Savannah herself is trying to tell him that things aren’t always as they seem - and that sometimes, the dead don’t rest in peace.

About the Author

Alistair Cross' debut novel, The Crimson Corset, a vampiric tale of terror and seduction, was an immediate bestseller earning praise from veteran vampire-lit author, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and New York Times bestseller, Jay Bonansinga, author of The Walking Dead series. In 2012, Alistair joined forces with international bestseller, Tamara Thorne, and as Thorne & Cross, they write - among other things - the successful Gothic series, The Ravencrest Saga. Their debut collaboration, The Cliffhouse Haunting, reached the bestseller’s list in its first week of release. They are currently at work on their next solo novels and a new collaborative project.

In 2014, Alistair and Tamara began the radio show, Thorne & Cross: Haunted Nights LIVE!, which has featured such guests as Charlaine Harris of the Southern Vampire Mysteries and basis of the HBO series True Blood, Jeff Lindsay, author of the Dexter novels, Jay Bonansinga of The Walking Dead series, Laurell K. Hamilton of the Anita Blake novels, Peter Atkins, screenwriter of HELLRAISER 2, 3, and 4, worldwide bestseller V.C. Andrews, and New York Times best sellers Preston & Child, Christopher Rice, and Christopher Moore.